Search by subject

News stories

News stories provides summaries of all the main stories on poverty, social exclusion, inequality and social mobility in the UK from 2011 to 2014. Some major stories from outside the UK are also included.

The percentage of households falling below society's minimum standard of living has increased from 14% to 33% over the last 30 years, despite the size of the economy doubling. In Scotland today, when we compare people's actual living standards with the minimum standards which the public thinks everyone should have, we find that:

The results of the largest ever study into poverty and social exclusion show rising levels of deprivation and that parents sacrifice their own welfare to protect their children. Read the full press release for the 2014 Townsend Memorial conference held in London on June 19 and 20, 2014.

Total spending on most benefits and tax credits will be capped at £119.5 billion in 2015-16, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced in his 2014 Budget speech.

The so-called 'welfare cap' was originally proposed in the 2013 Spending Round. It excludes spending on state pensions and 'automatic stabilisers' (mainly jobseeker's allowance and its passported housing benefit). The level of the cap will rise in line with forecast inflation to £122 billion in 2016-17, £124.6 billion in 2017-18 and £126.7 billion in 2018-19.

The coalition government said the cap will 'ensure that significant increases in spending do not go uncorrected'.

The Child Poverty Action Group commented: 'Announcing a cap for social security spending without a plan to address the root causes of low pay, high rents and high childcare costs, simply forces the most vulnerable in society to pay the price for inaction'.

A coalition government minister has claimed it is ‘very hard to know' why people go to foodbanks.

The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Lord Freud, said in the House of Lords: 'On the issue of food banks... which we have discussed several times in this House, clearly nobody goes to a food bank willingly. However, it is very hard to know why people go to them'.

He added that a recent review commissioned by the coalition government had shown a 'lack of systematic peer-reviewed research' from the UK on the reasons or immediate circumstances that lead people to turn to food aid.

Martin Sime, SCVO Chief Executive, said: 'With nearly a million people in Scotland living in poverty, we have a humanitarian crisis on our hands and we need everyone’s help to tackle it. Thousands of people are turning to food banks, struggling to heat their homes, and to clothe themselves and their children... We want people to wake up to the poverty storm that’s engulfing Scotland and get active in the fight against it'.

Local councils in England and Wales have spent nearly £3 million over the last two years on tackling food poverty, an investigation has revealed. Well over a third of all councils – 140 out of 323 responding – told a survey for the BBC's Panorama programme that they have subsidised foodbanks.

Both the Trussell Trust (the largest network of food banks) and Citizens Advice told the BBC the main causes of the rise in demand are problems with benefits, low income and debt.

The Low Pay Commission has recommended a 3 per cent rise in the statutory minimum wage from 1 October 2014, lifting the main adult hourly rate from £6.31 to £6.50. Given the current inflation forecast of 2.3 per cent, this would represent a small real-terms increase – the first such increase for five years.

In a letter to the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, the Commission said the recommended rise would mean the number of jobs covered by the minimum wage would increase by over a third, to one and a quarter million.

Twenty-seven Church of England bishops have signed a letter condemning the coalition government's benefits reforms, which they say have forced people into food and fuel poverty.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, published in the Daily Mirror to mark the beginning of Lent, the bishops – along with 16 representatives of other Churches – said that too many people were having to choose between 'heat or eat' as a result of 'cut backs and failures in the benefit system'.

Britain's most senior Catholic cleric has described the effects of the coalition government's benefits reforms as a 'disgrace', and said the changes have removed even the most basic safety net for those threatened by poverty. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said the system has become more 'punitive', leaving people with nothing if they fail to fill in forms correctly.

Pages

PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.